Steve McIntosh Report Blog Archive

Tracking home foreclosures

by Steve McIntosh,posted Feb 2 2011 1:23AM

RealtyTrac’s latest update puts Las Vegas as tops in foreclosures nation-wide, with one out of every nine homes receiving some kind of default notice in 2010. That’s five times higher than the national average. But the foreclosure rate in Vegas is actually dropping … down 7% compared to the end of 2009.

Rates fell in all top-10 foreclosure markets in 2010. But RealtyTrac reports that even as foreclosures fell in the worst-hit areas, they rose in 72% of the 206 metro areas covered by RealtyTrac. Unemployment pushed the rates higher because people out of work can’t make their mortgage payments.

Houston’s foreclosures rose by 26% … the biggest jump by any of the top 20 largest metro areas … to one of every 62 households. That was pushed by a local unemployment rate that rose to 8.6% in November.

RealtyTrac reports that one in every 688 housing units in Wichita received a foreclosure filing in December 2010. South central Kansas is doing a lot better than most metro areas when it comes to foreclosures.

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Our thought for today is from Henry David Thoreau:

“Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.”